


Shiver

by tenscupcake



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:14:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2905505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenscupcake/pseuds/tenscupcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she and the Doctor fall through some thin ice because of a faulty landing, a very cold and frustrated Rose just wants to huddle by the fireplace alone, but he doesn't want to leave her side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shiver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adams1422](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adams1422/gifts).



> This is a late Christmas gift for [Amber](http://shutupandlovetennant.tumblr.com). What started as a fluffy foray into warming up and roasting marshmallows slowly turned into this steamy 10k behemoth exploring a slightly alternative take on telepathy than the one you'll find in CS. It was an utter blast to write, despite the many months and late nights spent pondering and fiddling with the wording. I hope you guys enjoy! <3

“N-next time, I g-get to choose the p-planet,” Rose gripes through chattering teeth as she crumples to the floor of the library in front of the now roaring fireplace, trying both to keep the large towel pulled over her shoulders and hold her hands out to the radiating heat.

“I’m sorry, really, I’m so sorry,” the Doctor pleads with her in quiet, soothing tones, sensing her frustration with him. “I had no idea that ice would be so thin. I planned on landing us at the beginning of winter so we could see the frozen waterfalls over the north cliffs, but…”

“Sh-shut it, Doctor, it doesn’t m-matter,” she snaps at him again, though most of the angry effect is lost with her inadvertent stuttering.

“Rose, you really need to get those wet clothes off.” Droplets of water are trickling from her hair onto her face, the towel slowly saturating with water from the clothes in question, some of it dripping all the way onto the plush white rug beneath her.

“Y-yeah, right, while you s-stand there in yours, l-like a h-hypocrite.” It’s true – he’s soaked through to the skin and his shoes squeak like mad with every step.

“I’m not the one who can’t even speak properly ‘cause their teeth are chattering so hard.” Blessed with an exponentially more efficient temperature regulation system, the Doctor experiences far less discomfort from the brief dip in the frigid lake. He eyes her with concern as her core is rocked with another round of convulsive shivers.

“I d-don’t f-feel like m-movin’,” she insists.

“Rose, please, go and put on some dry clothes. For me.”

“Ugh-gh, f-fine, but just g-go away, this is y-your f-fault.” She barks the order in her state of discomfort but she gets to her feet nonetheless, and he’s relieved.

“Yes, all right, fine.” he agrees, nodding and trying not to sound crestfallen. He nudges the TARDIS for a couple of the thick, oversized blankets, and two plush brown bundles of fabric have appeared in the doorway when he looks up. He meant to ask one be delivered to Rose’s room but decides it won’t matter, and he dashes over to pick one up to find it’s stuffed with the pillowy soft, insulating synthetic fiber from Centaurus A – his go-to for hypothermia for four regenerations now.

“Rose,” he calls before she can pass him.

“Wh-wha’?” She’s still angry, and there’s still water dripping from her clothes. He thinks there might even be a few ice crystals yet in her hair and on her shirt, but the ice in her glare is even colder than what little may be on her body.

“Wrap yourself in this after you’ve changed.” He holds it out and she snatches it from him with more aggression than he thinks is really necessary before disappearing out of sight down the hallway. He asks the TARDIS to move her room closer, but doesn’t follow her, not wanting to push his luck with Rose’s temper when it really is his fault she’s nearly freezing to death. He thinks about leaving the library for the evening, he really does. Heeding her command to ‘go away.’ But the more he thinks about it, the more ridiculous it sounds: leaving her to warm her frigid limbs by herself, when the whole thing’s his fault. No. He’ll be joining her again once she gets back, he’d hate himself if he didn’t.

He decides to change, though. Just a quick trip to the wardrobe room for a clean, dry duplicate of his suit (and a stop at his bathroom to towel off his hair and ensure it’s artfully crafted and touchable as always). The TARDIS tells him she’s already back in front of the fire, and he meanders down the hall, giving her a few minutes to herself before he barges in and ruins her peace and quiet.

It’s simply bad timing that it’s just as he’s steeling himself to walk in, she moans deeply, for what could be the first or the tenth time, the sound muffled by what he can only guess is the blanket pulled up to her face.

“Oh, g-god, ‘s s-so warm.” Her breathy sigh into the fabric makes him shiver from something quite different from the cold. His usual defense mechanism is to fire up his gob, and he doesn’t stray from it, shaking his head to clear his mind, picking the other blanket up off the floor at the entrance, and strolling into the room.

“The material’s perfectly suited to trap even residual body heat.” Startled, Rose jumps a little in her bundle of blanket, twisting around to roll her eyes at him before facing the fire again, but he goes on unfazed. “Back on Earth they’re stuffing blankets with goose feathers and things, but later you lot really get it right, invent a synthetic material called puppy fur. It’s not made of real puppies of course, just what the inventor thought it felt like. I think he’s quite right about that. But it’s got none of the allergens and twice the strength.”

“Yeah, ‘s g-great.” Even with the muffled sound her tone drips with sarcasm, but it doesn’t stop him from approaching her as he finishes his monologue. She’s only about two feet from the blaze, completely enveloped in brown fluff in the shape of a ball. He wraps his own around himself, too, not wanting her to feel completely weak and vulnerable if he sits there without one, rubbing it in her face. Her stringy, damp hair is all he can see emerging from the blanket until he sits beside her, pulling the ends of the blanket around his shoulders, when her head turns almost imperceptibly as her eyes flit over to look at him, just visible above the fringe of silky threads over her nose.

“Feeling better?” he asks. She just nods vigorously, closing her eyes as if to relish the healing combination of the flames and the blanket and show just how better she’s feeling. What’s more evidence, though, is that the near-seizures of before have quieted to gentle shivers from inside her cocoon.

“Th-thought you weren’t cold.”

“Well,” he drawls. “Didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.” He _is_ cold, though not as cold as she is, and of course he’d never tell her that.

With tiny little leaps alternating her bum and her feet, she scoots closer to him, stopping only when their blankets are smooshed together, her hips and knees knocking his harmlessly through the layers. Her cheek nestles against his shoulder and he presses his lips to her hair, feeling it wet and far too cold for his liking.

“Blimey, you are freezing,” he says, wriggling his arm free of his blanket so he can wrap it around Rose and snuggle her closer. She just nods again and he can see her eyes are closed, focused on defrosting more than listening.

So he just holds her like that for a while, breathing her in because the water’s washed away all the soaps and perfumes and it’s just Rose, salty and dimly floral. His eyes flutter closed too, narrowing his senses and he tries not to pick up the sweetness of pheromones and the faint traces of arousal (from when?) but quickly fails, his mouth watering as he succumbs to those scents as well.

It’s thirty-two minutes later that she stirs; his eyes peek open instantly to find the lights have gone out, and it’s only the soft yellow and orange licks of the fire illuminating their bundled up bodies. He mentally rolls his eyes at the TARDIS as two lumps at the bottom of her burrito fidget, poking for an escape route until finally until her feet emerge, toes wriggling in victory.

“You warmed up now?” he asks, voice low and hoarse.

“Abuthtuhwhrmnowachlee,” she mumbles incoherently, as her mouth’s still half covered by the blanket and half pressed against his suit. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she tugs it away from her face to speak properly.

“A bit too warm, now, actually,” she whispers clearly, starting to squirm uncomfortably from within her personal heater. He lets his arm slip from around her and it comes to the floor behind them to prop himself up.

“Why are the lights off?” she adds, turning her neck to see him.

“Uhm… the TARDIS must’ve… thought you were asleep,” he lies. “She’s just being considerate, I think.” She nods slightly, unquestioning of his explanation, before wriggling her head further away from the blanket, exposing more of the smooth skin of her neck and a glimpse of collarbone before she stops. More of her legs slowly emerge from the blanket as they straighten in front of her, the creamy skin of ankles and calves and knees creating a slender canvas for the flickering golden lights of the fire. He’s starting to wonder just how much she’s wearing beneath the blanket.

“Y’know what’d be gorgeous right now?”

“What?”

“Some s’mores.” She drags out the word deliciously, each syllable lingering on her tongue like she can taste them in her mouth already.

“Hmm, that would be brilliant.”

“You ever had ‘em?”

“Once or twice.” He shrugs. “How have you? Not exactly a popular treat in London.”

“Saw a recipe online once. We can make some, yeah?” Her smile is impossible to resist, especially in the aftermath of a near-death experience.

“I’d love to. But, we don’t have any biscuits. Or any chocolate bars. We do have chocolate chips… and chocolate syrup, and chocolate milk… chocolate ice cream, chocolate frogs…” He’s staring into the fire as he tries to remember every chocolate item in stock in their plentiful kitchen, rather than staring at the way lights and shadows dance across the silky skin of her neck and chest.

“Wha’, like, from Harry Potter?” Her attention catches on the amphibians.

“Yeah, ‘course. Mind you, they don’t jump, but…” he trails off, nodding to imply they’re still as tasty as more conventionally shaped desserts despite their resemblance to green, slimy pond-dwellers.

“Can’t the TARDIS make us some?”

“Rose, this ship is brilliant, but it can’t make food from thin air. We’ve got to have some stocked somewhere on the ship in order for her to get it to us.”

“Alright, then, we do have marshmallows? Bring ‘em here, we can make do with those.”

“Uhm… well... all right. Want to ditch the blankets first?” he asks, hesitant to dabble with open flame while surrounded by carbon-based polymers.

“I’m ok. Why, are you feelin’ hot?” He’s at least fifty percent sure Rose isn’t wearing anything under that blanket: of course he’s hot. Sweltering, in fact.

“Wha – me? No, no, I just thought – you know, range of motion,” he fabricates quickly, wiggling the elbow still stuck inside the blanket to prove his point, tugging at his ear with his free hand. Clearing his throat, he sends his request to the TARDIS discreetly, smiling awkwardly as he waits a few moments for its arrival.

Ten seconds pass of Rose eyeing him too intensely, like she’s _trying_ to make him uncomfortable, biting her lip and fidgeting with her feet, dark eyes flickering with yellow as they flit from his eyes down his bundled body one too many times. His patience snaps and he wrests his other arm free with some readjustments of his blanket and leans over to throw open the drawer of the desk nearest him, relieved to find there’s a bag of white puffs and two wiry metal sticks inside.

“Right, then” he announces, resuming a normal volume to drown out the awkward silence as he sets the metal down and rips open the bag too hastily. Several marshmallows jump out as it peels and tears a jagged line down the middle of the plastic package.

“All righ’ there, Doctor?” Rose asks, gingerly poking a hand from the tresses of blanket.

“Yep, good, yeah.” He nods and picks up the ones she misses, quickly ruffling a hand through his hair. “These things are just more flimsy than they look.” He defends his lapse in judgment of the force needed to tear the plastic, or the thickness or material, he isn’t sure which.

Somehow, they manage to spear a couple marshmallows on their respective sticks without another moment of embarrassment, scooting closer to the fire until the flames can reach their mallows.

“I suppose there’s some sort of art to this,” he says, holding his between two large and chaotic flames that sway back and forth as though moved by an invisible breeze.

“Yep.” Rose nods, holding her own distinctly further from any actual contact with the fire, rotating the stick in her palm. “You want to turn it so it gets an even coat of brown on the outside… wait, have you never done this before?”

“Technically… no.” He starts twisting his wrist slowly to rotate the white fluff but takes his eyes off it in favor of watching Rose concentrate on hers instead.

“But you said you’ve had s’mores before.”

“Well, I s’pose I have, but, it wasn’t quite in the American tradition. The marshmallows were purple. Well, really they weren’t marshmallows, because they were made with the juice of native lavender fruits that’s only found in one cultivar of a rare plant that grows along the shore of the only river on Lysithia. Lavender fruits instead of sugar cane, Rose. Imagine that! And they don’t use gelatin or pectin, instead they extract this special polysaccharide made by insects – ”

“Doctor, you’re on fire,” Rose interrupts.

“What?” He hastily checks his exposed torso for signs of flames or singeing.

“No,” she laughed. “Your marshmallow.”

“Oh!” He realizes as he glances over to find that his white puffball has become a teardrop of flame hovering over the larger fire.

“See, ’s why you can’t hold it right in the fire. You’ve got to keep a close eye on it,” Rose explains as he carefully carries the burning stick over the carpet and blows on it hard, squelching the flames but leaving a charred black clump where the chubby, pristine white cylinder used to be. He hums in contemplation for a short moment before peeling it off the stick with his teeth anyway.

“Oh, gross!” Rose laughs. He shrugs a little as he chews, burnt sugar and flaky, powdery blackness dissolving on his tongue before a tiny pocket of hot, melty goo reveals itself from the inside. It imparts a hint of sweetness to the bitter, charred flavor but mostly serves to cement the burnt thing to his pearly whites.

“Tastes a bit like an ashtray.” He cringes a bit as it goes down, smacking his tongue to get the last of it from the roof of his mouth.

“Here.” With light pressure that doesn’t ruin its shape, she pulls her own toasted golden marshmallow from the wire with her thumb and index finger, holding it out to him.

“It’s fine, I’ll try again. You keep that one.”

“Doctor, please.” He never could deny her when she asked anything twice.

He could easily take it with his own fingers before popping it in his mouth, but the temptation to taste her lingers in his reflexes, quickly overpowering notions of societal politeness as he leans forward to take it with his teeth. She responds almost like she expected it, pushing it into his mouth with her thumb with a giggle, and he closes his lips over the tip just enough that he can swipe his tongue across her skin. Salty. Very warm. A little sweet. Rose’s distinctive musk finally made tangible on his tongue.

“Brilliant.” To her knowledge, he’s only speaking of the marshmallow, of course, as he savors the crisp outer texture mingling with the warm, sticky interior, but the floral undertones of Rose linger in the sugary mixture and make him sound regrettably inebriated as the word comes out.

“Okay, okay,” he mumbles out as he swallows the last of the marshmallow, taking the stick with a second speared marshmallow from her hand before she can bring it towards the fire. “I’ll get it right this time. This one’s for you.”

“Nope.” She shakes her head as she dives for the other stick he set beside him. “I’m makin’ my own, case you cock it up again.”

“Rose,” he gasps. “The lip!

“’M sorry, ‘m sorry! You’ll get it right, ‘course you will. Just… don’t hold it so close. And be sure to turn it over.”

He emulates her technique as best as he can, his marshmallow only dipping his too close to a lick of flame the handful of times he glances over, and he can’t help the way his eyes dwell on the curve of her lips when she smiles, the way the heat paints a deep pink blush on her cheeks.

“’S better. Much better.” She nods her approval, one side of her cheek pulling up in a gentle smile as they swap toasted treats.

“Mmm, that’s gorgeous.” Through the mouthful it’s more of a soft moan than anything, her eyelids fluttering closed and her head leaning back, and he chokes on his own bite.

“All righ’?” Her palm lands in between his shoulder blades a few times, a light tapping that’s more reassuring than life-saving.

“Yep,” he manages with a shaky breath. “Erm, so, I did it right this time?”

“Think so, yeah.”

He isn’t sure how much longer he can stand it, having her close enough to be constantly overwhelmed by the subtle perfume of her skin (especially now that he can match a taste to it). Wondering how concealed her curves are underneath the blanket layered over her torso and thighs. How her blonde locks would tickle his skin when they’re damp, twined between his fingers as he brings her closer. Whether her cheeks would feel as warm against his as they look when their mouths come together, how much better it would be to taste her lips than her thumb.

“Well, I dunno about you, but I’m havin’ another.” She reaches out to grab the open bag and set it between them; leaning back to get out of her way gives him the rush of blood he needs to snap out of it. He takes another from deep in the pile as his internal scolding kicks in.

Times like this he just needs to remind himself he’s a millennium-old Time Lord, not the thirty-something-year-old human he’s currently pretending to be. Underneath the facade of youth is an ancient mind replete with centuries of baggage she doesn’t deserve on her shoulders; beneath the bright exterior he’s shrouded in darkness. He’s a bringer of destruction more than salvation, stalked by death itself. Loathe to burden her with something as volatile as his l – well… that, the four-letter ‘l’ word. And hardly deserving of hers.

Times like this he thinks of all the things he _can_ be for her. Friend. Mentor. Protector. A hand to hold. It’s more than enough for him, he thinks. Except in these quiet moments, when blood rushes to places he hasn’t felt it for decades and his normally crystal clear head swims with her proximity and her fragrance and the sound of her laughter.

If she moves in first, he won’t resist. Her allure is too strong; his weak will crumbles too easily. But he won’t be the one to initiate it, can’t be. Not when it means she’ll be surrendering to the will of the dangerous man tucked away beneath his bubbly personality, that transcends his regenerations: the Gallifreyan soul inside him that’s shattered like broken glass. He knows the shards have cut her already, when she’s come too close, has seen it in her eyes. When he had the audacity to be rude when her father’s world was collapsing around her, as she confronted him in the street after Sarah Jane, in the console room after France.

Besides, she hasn’t made any indication she wants that, not really. She can charm the pants off anyone with eyes, and what he thinks are flirtations are more than likely just playful gestures. He’d best not dwell on the possibility.

“Doctor, you’re burnin’ it to a crisp again.” Rose’s laughter pulls him out of his trance and he finds his treat alight with orange again.

He groans in frustration before blowing it out gracelessly, flecks of orange sparking on the rug that he quickly stamps out while Rose is in stitches next to him.

“Oi, if you’re such an expert,” he complains, peeling the blackened mush from his stick and shoving it in his mouth before handing it to her, empty. “You c’n make th’res’,” he mumbles through the mouthful. “I’ll jus’lay here.”

The blanket unravels around him as he leans back on the rug, burying his head in the plush thickness of it and discovering he could easily fall asleep like this.

“Well, y’didn’t have to eat that one, we’ve got plenty here.” He peers through his eyelashes as she spears another marshmallow and holds them both out in front of her, still without abandoning her own blanket. Must be roasting in there by now.

“Don’t like to waste food, me,” he mumbles as his eyes drift closed, the unexpected comfort of the synthetic fabric making his embarrassment fade, if only slightly.

“Okay, well, don’t give up. ‘M sorry for laughin’, it was more your reaction than anythin’.” She chuckles again at the remembrance of it, and he’d be rolling his eyes if they weren’t closed.

“Nope. It’s fine. You go on ahead.” He waves a hand in dismissal before linking his hands over his chest.

“Doctor.” Her voice is closer than he expected, the brush of hands and knees against the rug offering some explanation before he can wonder why.

“Doctor,” she repeats, from directly above him. He opens his eyes to find her kneeling beside him, the blanket fallen from around her shoulders to reveal only a white camisole and the pink shorts he’s always fancied on her. In her outstretched hand is a perfectly toasted marshmallow with his name on it, in her mouth is another, he thinks, but he can’t tear his eyes from her neckline, where her breasts strain to succumb to gravity behind the white fabric as she leans forward.

“You know,” he begins, taking the stick as he purposefully takes in her frame in full, ensuring she sees. All smooth legs and soft curves hardly interrupted by useless clothes, untamed hair and gorgeous lips and flushed cheekbones. “For a while there I was starting to wonder if you were completely starkers under that blanket.” He bites the marshmallow off the metal to give his mouth something to do besides devour every inch of her skin.

She doesn’t answer for a moment, as they both chew their sticky confections.

It’s not fair, really. That in this body her appeal is ten times what it was in his previous, always drawing him in, teasing, temping… a super-charged magnet he can’t turn off. In this body he’s felt something for Rose beyond the realm of affection or gratitude, and it’s been so long he’d almost forgotten what it feels like. How its iron grip hijacks his somatic nervous system, making him say things he wouldn’t – flirt with her, tease her, charm her. Do things he wouldn’t – find any excuse to touch her, feel her skin against his. Its intensity permeates his brain, seeping into every crevice until it’s all he can think about: her naked, moaning, arching, gasping under his touch.

She’s twenty years old and pure and he shouldn’t crave her like this. But he does. It’s worse, even, for someone telepathic as himself, to want her not just to satisfy physical desires but to fill the loneliness in his mind, to form a connection he wouldn’t dare have with anyone else. An emotional drive too strong, frankly, to allow himself to be alone with her like this.

“Just wondering?” Her tongue brushes across her bottom lip.

“Yeah.” He nods, tugging on his ear with his thumb and forefinger. “Y’know, just curious, that’s all.”

“Mhm.” She lays down next to him, abandoning the two sticks next to the bag of marshmallows. “Oh, this is comfy.” She nestles her cheek into the silky strands of the rug as she fidgets around, pulling the blanket over her hip and scooting closer to him. “’M sorry I laughed at you.”

He has no choice but to roll towards her after such a confession. Shadows cloak the half of her face not colored dimly by the fire, her eyes carrying a sincere apology as they search his face – taking advantage of the rare closeness to learn the minutiae of his face the same way he is with hers, he guesses.

“I’m sorry I let you fall through the ice,” he whispers, propping himself on his elbow.

“You’re forgiven,” she whispers back, a smile on her lips he wouldn’t deny anything.

“So are you,” he breathes.

“How bad would it be if we slept in here?” Already the words are a bit slurred with drowsiness as she finds a comfortable position on the soft floor.

“Not bad at all, actually.” He closes his eyes, more as a solace from the warm colors of her skin and the delicious curves of her stomach and chest being bared by the scanty clothing than out of real exhaustion. “The books get lonely.”

“Oh, they do?” She giggles.

“Sure. Lots of sentient books in this library. I can sense they’d like some company –”

The whole world stops, every incessant clock ticking in his mind, every crackle of a flame and creak of a shelf ceases. The very hum of the ship quiets, the universe itself skids on its heel from spinning into stillness, as she covers his mouth with her own.

Frozen in shock, he can only lie there, all but ignoring the barrage of genetic information and hormone levels and body temperature and just feeling her: hot, pliable, silky Rose against his lips. His brain melts into mush, his arm going to jelly beneath his head as he sinks deeper into her, pushing back with just enough pressure to tell her not to stop. To never stop.

She parts her lips, delving into his mouth to moisten them before starting a rhythm of languid, soft caresses over his, leaving no trace of the sensitive pink curves untouched. The gentle brushes tingle under his skin, send shockwaves of pleasure from the tips of his hair to his toes, though the dose concentrates in his groin so quickly it makes him lightheaded.

He hears himself whine when she pulls back but doesn’t have it in him to apologize. It’s only then he realizes he hasn’t been kissing her back properly. Which is so backwards because he only craves more: his hands itch with the urge to tear clothing, spread palms and fingers across her naked back, pull her bared warmth closer, press lean fingertips into soft curves, kiss and taste and nip at every sliver of exposed skin.

“Rose,” he breathes, low and quiet, delirious with longing but hesitant enough to give him pause before diving into something so permanent. It’s obvious there’s dejection in her eyes, reluctance in the set of her jaw.

“If you don’t want –”

“I do want,” he interrupts, graver than he meant, sparking another ember of concern in her eyes. “I was… I was just surprised. Rose, please.” He raises a hand towards her, hovers over her side for a moment, waiting on permission she gives with a slow, cautious nod. His hand lands on the curve of her waist and he tugs her closer and budges up to meet her, closing the gap between their bodies and lamenting the way her blanket is still largely in the way.

“Kiss me again.” His eyes blaze into hers and she falters under his gaze.

“Uhm, that is, I mean… if you want,” he adds with a gulp, hoping to tone down the obvious desperation.

She doesn’t waste time after that. Her lips crash back onto his, fingers clutching at the starchy fibers of his jacket and he mourns the percent of his body that his wardrobe covers (though it’s the same as always). The measured, delicate synchrony of their lips gives way to his ravenous kisses; he’s waited too long for this, and she tastes like fresh rain and flowers and redemption. Needs more. Selfishness thrashes against its cage from deep in his mind, because he can already feel it stirring between them, feel the wisps of her consciousness teasing the tips of his own, tempting him to push further, reach out and unearth and consume all she has to give. Needs to stop. Can’t.

“Touch me,” he whispers between kisses.

“I am,” she breathes against his lips, confused. Tightens one fist in his jacket near his waist and strokes the other one up his chest, toying with silk on his tie, wondering what he’s asking for.

“Not my clothes.” He shakes his head. “ _Me.”_

She wastes only a half a second trying to unknot his tie before taking the shortcut he intended, bringing a hand up to cup his cheek and the other behind his head, spreading her fingers against the short hairs at the back of his neck as she reunites their lips. His skin hums with electricity beneath her fingertips, the subtle waves of her affection and arousal growing stronger with her touch, and he moans into her mouth, deep and long.

He lifts a hand to press into the skin between her shoulder blades, dipping the other beneath the hem of her top to rub up and down the middle of her back, fingertips brushing over her spine. Gooseflesh forms beneath his palm as she shivers, and his mind reaches closer across the gap, her thoughts almost loud enough for him to hear, her sensations so close to twining intimately with his that his hips push against hers, independent of his will.

The lonely, dull tendrils of his mind, weak and starved of intimacy, won’t stop until they’ve had their fill, but she can’t sense it happening, not yet. Her mind isn’t strong enough. She’s perfectly distracted by the techniques his mouth seems to have come equipped with, as he sucks her bottom lip into his mouth and licks across it, brushes the length of her tongue with his own before pulling it into his mouth and sucking gently. He already knows how to make her whimper against his lips, what he needs to do to feel her fingernails dig into the back of his neck. Loves the way they leave crescent-shaped indents, little crests of pleasure from the intensity of the direct contact that he can’t help but moan again.

A sharp, sudden fear prickles his spine ( _Rose_ ).

“Rose.” It’s a barely-contained groan.

“Doctor, are you…”

She wants to say all right, but she doesn’t. Probably never been with a bloke so intense before: he should get a hold of himself, really. Probably freaking her out more than anything.

“I’m sorry, I just…” He tries to slow his breathing, speak as calmly as possible, but she makes it difficult, her thumb stroking his cheek and fingers rustling through his hair, the feather-light touches a mirror for the way her mind nudges against his, floating through the space between them to brush along the edges of his own. “It feels _really_ good,” he groans again, eyes closing as he surrenders to her, only just barely tethering his mind from escaping.

“Blimey, you really aren’t human, are you,” she mutters under her breath. “Anywhere else I should try?” He’s grateful, anyway, that she’s willing to accept what she thinks are alien erogenous zones in stride and continue, but he chuckles despite himself.

“No, it’s not that.” He laughs in earnest. She takes his chin in her hand, brow furrowing as she waits for his explanation. He takes a deep breath before answering.

“My skin is… er, sensitive.”

“Y’think?” She laughs but it’s breathy, hesitant; she still doesn’t quite understand.

“Touch telepath.” He points two fingers to his temple, tapping a few times. “It comes standard.” Enlightenment dawns on her face as she looks him up and down, but wonder slowly turns to amusement.

“’s that why you always wear so many clothes?”

“Well.” He winces a little, embarrassed she’s figured it out so quickly. “It doesn’t hurt. Why, do you not like them?”

“No, I do.” Her hands abandon his face (it takes everything he has not to beg for them not to), in favor of yanking his tie from his jacket. “’Specially the tie, ‘s nice.” Quick, slender fingers work out the simple knot in a matter of seconds, but she pulls the fabric out from his collar so slowly it’s almost painful, his breath coming in uneven huffs.

“The collared shirts, too,” she whispers, discarding the tie behind her before zeroing in on the first button of his jacket. He tries to focus on breathing normally, stroking his fingers along her back to calm himself as she pops off the buttons one by one, finishing his jacket and working down the collar of his Oxford, gentle and patient where he wants rough and urgent.

With the release of the last button her fingertips are on his stomach, tracing circles over his abdomen, grazing fingernails up his sides, pressing palms and splaying fingers over his chest until he has to bite his lip to keep quiet. Drifting through a weak signal, interrupted by static: what it feels like to touch him, his own cool skin, patches of hair stretched over lean muscle under her warm fingertips. Behind that, subtle and distant but unmistakable, heat throbs between smooth, nearly bare legs.

“Rose,” he gasps. “Are you sure about this?” His hands are both under her thin camisole now, exploring the curve of her waist, touching as much as he can to try to show her what she’s signing up for.

“I… yeah.” She’s shocked by the question, or maybe confused by what she’s receiving from him now, stronger flickers of him and her and _them_.

“Can you feel that?”

“’S that… are you… inside my head?” She doesn’t stop stroking along his chest, which he takes as a good sign. Seems only curious.

“Not quite.” He shakes his head. “Will be, if we don’t… stop.”

“So, ‘s not, like… optional, then?”

“No. Well, nor-normally I can control it, yes,” he stutters in his nervousness, his fear she’ll reject him now, even when he knows she should. She definitely, definitely should. “But, without the clothes… the more direct contact we have, the harder it gets to stay separate. And once I can feel you, once the link forms, I won’t be able to stop. Nor you, I imagine.”

“What if I don’t want to stop?” Of course she’d accept this. Want to discover his darkest depths and let him take advantage of her for all she knows, even after she’s been mad at him, after all the damage she’s watched him cause and the pain he’s wrought on her personally. He’s a danger to her well-being, who shouldn’t dare to ask a deeper affection of her, for hedonistic release and psychological solace like her friendship and optimism aren’t enough. He’s flashing his hazard lights, though, and she isn’t heeding them. Driving straight towards them.

He’s a danger, indeed. A danger who needs her desperately.

“Are you sure?” It’s her last chance and she doesn’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

He’s done for.

Something stronger than gravity pulls them back together, lips and tongues and hips meet with delicate grace while hands push and pull and tear at clothes without regard for gentleness. Electric warmth surges between them, every touch echoed and heightened as nerves and pleasure and thoughts meld together with the gradual union of their minds. His jacket and shirt are underneath him and she is finally free of the clinging white fabric and he tugs her against him, skin meets skin and he cries against her lips.

Silken warm nipples, soft rounds of flesh press and mold to the hard lines of his chest, curves of radiant heat against cool white musculature, gentle hands pressing damp sweat into his collarbone, his shoulders, his neck. Miles of silky skin and smooth curves yield to the light pressure of his touch, learning the dips in her waist and warm roughness of shivers down her back under the graze of his fingertips.

_Hold me_ , she doesn’t say.

He does anyway.

Their lips never part as he wraps himself around her, every inch of his arms crushing her against him like it’s the last chance he has to hold her, like at any minute someone will try to take her from him. Her hands are in his hair as she presses him into the carpet, rolling onto him like she’ll devour him if he lets her and of course he will. So much skin now, so many nerve endings connected, live wires humming with discordant desires that guide them without words, shifting hands and molding curves until they harmonize.

Palms, fingertips, nails on his neck, his cheeks, his hair as she kisses him, experiencing first-hand how starved he is for the intimacy with neither fear nor judgment. And it’s not hollow, a touch from Rose Tyler: it’s _full_ to bursting with acceptance and passion and it brings life, precious flowing water nourishing cracked, arid soil after decades of drought. This, _this_ , he dares to think, heals more than regeneration itself.

He can see to the depths of her heart, and she to the furthest reaches of his lonely mind, though it’s in glimpses, glances of memories and thoughts and desires. Fleeting sounds and images a sharp contrast to the constant, heated intertwining of their bodies, not just gravity or pent-up desires holding them together, but something permanent, something… forever.

She once told him forever.

His forever is different than hers, quasi-immortal as he is. But now it isn’t just a word from her lips, transient in the air, it’s a promise that trickles to the dark corners of his mind, gushes through his veins with irrefutable authority.

_Gentle_ with his thumbs over her nipples, _more_ of his tongue and teeth on her neck, _harder_ with his lazy thrusts up to meet her, he obeys all her vaguely formed commands. He’d do anything for her, now, he would, but even he can get carried away. His hands are splayed across the thin fabric of her shorts before much time passes, guiding her down onto him with each roll of her hips, his kisses sloppy and inconsistent between whispers of her name into her shoulder.

_Clothes_.

He isn’t sure if it was her, or him this time, or if it even matters. His toes dig into the thick heels on his Chucks to pry and kick them off without untying them or jostling Rose from her very, very desirable position. But she moves anyway, lifting off his hips and pulling out his mouth’s reach, reducing him to begging with groans and incoherent phrases that are a mix of his native tongue and hers.

Her hands find his chest the same time as her lips and he arches into her, his fingers tangling in her hair, maximizing the contact with the change in position. Soothing circles drawn by her fingertips along his pectorals and ribs while she kisses a trail down his sternum and across his stomach until he shudders under her at the thought of where she’s heading.

The button on his trousers pops open, the metal teeth on the zipper tears open before he can register her hands leave his sides. He lifts his hips and she pulls them down in one go, quickly bunching them at his ankles because she _knows_ , already she knows, he can hardly tolerate being without her touch for a second, now that the link is open. He means to work them off the rest of the way but his awareness restricts to her touch when her hands return to him, grip tightly onto his hips, fingers digging into his skin in a way that should hurt but doesn’t while her lips latch onto the inside of his thigh.

She hears his silent curse in Gallifreyan (he’s definitely not used to that yet). But then her tongue is _there_ , a broad stroke along his rigid length, rough and wet and _hot_ and his respiratory bypass must have kicked in because his lungs stopped. One of her hands wraps around him, fingers touching her thumb in a perfect circle, lips taking him in just a few centimeters (of _course_ she’s brilliant with her mouth here, too). She just chuckles around him when he groans louder than this body ever has and it only adds to the torture. Teeth just graze from behind her lips, gentle suction on the foreskin and her tongue swirling over the head and he has to override his basic autonomic nervous response not to go off in her mouth right then.

“Please.” He manages to form the word through the stream of senseless grunts, pictures it clear in his mind, exactly what it is he wants, pushing his hips up, dipping further into her mouth if only by a centimeter. The sight is something he’ll never forget: her peering up at him through thick eyelashes and clumpy mascara, breasts hanging low and tantalizing from their own weight, her bum in the air clad in barely-there shorts, lips wrapped around the tip of his length, a smile forming like it’s as innocent as a frozen banana.

The joking stops when she takes him in deeper, as far as he’ll go, her lips meeting her thumb as he chokes out another long moan. She strokes along his length a few times, light pressure from her lips and simple brushes of her tongue, and he only gets impossibly harder, pulsing with the wet heat of her mouth and the need for release. Thoughts of different species and age gaps and taking advantage have long vanished and it’s just the Doctor and Rose, finally putting an end to the touches and flirting, and so? It happens to start like this, with her mouth around him: it’s all right with him. He’s going to repay her for this. Oh, is he.

Light pressure turns to a pleasant tugging as her cheeks hollow out, her tongue working in rough strokes underneath. One, two, three shallow strokes only a couple inches long but then she retreats: he almost slips out of her mouth before she descends down the shaft again, the ridges in the roof of her mouth creating friction he could only dream about until now.

Three times like this is all she lasts before she hums with pleasure around him, and that’s just it: _pleasure._ She’s _enjoying_ it. The remnants of their connection linger and she can feel much of what he does, though to muffled degrees, but it’s more than that: even without being able to feel him she’d like this, just tasting and feeling him filling up her mouth. And that’s his downfall, in the end.

“Rose,” he breathes through clenched teeth. “Stop.” He holds out his hands when she releases him, still hard and aching and now sticky against his thigh, and he thinks there’s hurt in her eyes. “Please, just… Come here. I need to…” He trails off, knowing how vulnerable he’s about to make himself even without words to facilitate the process. Of course, she already knows. How he's going to bundle her in his arms and take all she has to give, kisses of gratitude on her lips and affection like he’ll never say out loud coursing through a direct line from his thoughts. How his hands will frantically roam her arms and shoulders and back like every new inch is nourishment to his fingertips, lingering on sensitive areas when she sighs against his lips.

Needing still more, he rolls them over, lays her on her back like she's made of glass and settles between her legs, his lips parted at her throat. Damp fabric barely stretches over her hot folds and he can feel her when he moves his hips, slick and soft and pliant against his hardness and even this scrap of friction is so divine, he can't imagine what it will be like when he’s actually inside her. He's satisfied enough though, on his third thrust when he hits her just there because it's the most beautiful sound in the universe, her gasp of unexpected pleasure.

She's already adapted to his hunger for steady physical contact, her hands secure against someplace on his face or his hair or torso at all times. He can’t decide which is better, his cock against her center or the roaming caresses of her hands, so much more potent than their other points of contact, pleasure and daydreams and encouragement and something else he refuses to label flowing effortlessly from her fingertips. She deserves this much attention reciprocated – more, even.

With a trail of sloppy kisses he crawls down her body, determined to rip the last skimpy article of clothing out of his way. Though, he spends much of the time drawing rings around her nipples with his tongue, squeezing soft flesh against his palms while her nails dig into his scalp and her back arches off the rug with a chorus of his name. The creamy expanse of her hips and thighs and calves are unexplored territory and he learns their taste and texture beneath his lips and hands as he drags the shorts down her legs.

He might throw the shorts in the fire, but he couldn't care less, with the gorgeous smooth curves of the sculpted marble goddess laid out before him (though of course, she’s still ten times prettier than Fortuna). Firelight flickering on her fair skin, a layer of damp sweat shimmering on her chest and face and neck, heat _he's_ kindled in her and it makes him swoon with a twist of pride and lust. That's even before his gaze lands between her legs as they spread for him, glistening pink flesh between trimmed dark tufts of hair.

She wants him over her, probably inside her, as she beckons him forward with her hand.

“Not yet.” His own voice startles him, laced with dark promises and desires, as he leans forward, closes in on his target. She doesn't hesitate, opens her legs even wider as his head settles between her thighs. The scent is intoxicating, her skin is smooth against his cheeks; his hands knead the supple curves of her bum and his patience to tease her dwindles to nothing.

The sound she makes when his tongue dips into her folds and over her clit overshadows everything else, it's almost a scream, almost a sob, and it's gorgeous. Her slick heat saturates his tongue and coats his lips, receptors telling him about fertility and minerals but his cock just tells him how very ready she is for him and he grinds against the plush carpet, straining for friction. A tang sweet enough to be orange juice, and something distinctly rose that reminds him of kissing her, something no humans have ever tasted on her, that floral essence that's only for him (so he convinces himself).

Her fingers twist through fistfuls of his hair, rubbing against his scalp and sending warm chills down his spine. With twirls around but never touching her clit he makes her beg again, rings around her entrance make her thighs clench over his ears. His tongue delves inside her and his name is on her lips again, the syllables drawn out on her tongue in a breathy sigh that lingers in his ears long after they leave the air. His nose nudges against her clit while his tongue strokes against her ribbed walls, and her heels dig into his back, hands pulling at his hair, trying to recreate the accident.

Two fingers replace his tongue, her name on his lips now as he grinds himself harder into the carpet, desperate to relieve the throbbing between his legs. The forward motion brings his lips in an open kiss over her clit, teasing the swollen bundle with shallow flicks from the tip of his tongue.

_Please_ , she cries only by tugging behind his ears, not bothering to ease off the lip she’s biting to keep quiet. He doesn’t want her to be quiet, though. Works his fingertips faster inside her, pressing harder against the ridged muscles clenched tight around his digits. Draws wide circles over her clit with the rough flat of his tongue, increasing the pressure with each swirl until she finally breaks, back arching with a long moan from deep in her chest she tries to stop in her throat but can’t.

Close. So, so close. It’s all her tightly stretched walls and clammy fingers clenched on top of his head are telling him, reinforcing the hot waves of pleasure filtering from her folds to his groin. It’s something so different even from her tongue on him that he shudders at the intensity of it, the foreign tendrils of ecstasy multiplying under his attention. With the way he’s grinding bare and hard against the silky strands of the rug with each round of his tongue he’s going to leave a mess on it before another minute passes. No, he needs to be inside her for that, to be able to hold her and watch her when she comes.

She doesn’t complain when his mouth and hands leave her in tandem, because she feels it from his thoughts as he rushes back up her body, hands fumbling to hold himself up and touch her wherever he can, strengthen the fibers linking their minds together. He kisses her hard, lips bruising against hers, teeth clashing briefly before she matches his urgent rhythm.

_Hold me_ , he doesn’t say.

She does anyway.

First around his neck, over the counters of shoulders and chest. His lips falter through a shudder when they trail down his spine with splayed fingers; they burrow tiny valleys into his back when she pauses to pull him closer, another stab of pleasure for them both at the spike in his telepathic field. Only then is either of them prepared to let go of the calming harmony of kisses in search of more.

His hard length glides in slow, lazy thrusts through her folds, teasing them both with hot, wet friction, her fluids and remnants from his mouth all the lubrication they need. Her hands grip onto his bare cheeks, though, squeezing in a signal to end the teasing and he jerks, startled. But with only a moment to angle his hips and readjust he’s prodding her entrance and she hauls him closer, her knees pulling up near her chest to leave him room.

A string of intimate confessions leaves his lips in that moment, words he’d never translate intentionally and that he hopes she won’t bring up later, as her slick muscles envelop him, taut and sultry and fluttering with need and that word again, the one he refuses to think in English. He savors their first coupling, the stretching of her walls and the cry of relief from her lips as he slowly sinks deeper and deeper, his arm wrapping under one thigh to find the right angle until he’s buried as far as he’ll go.

“Rose, I –” He gasps, hardly able to stand another second without moving, but he thinks she’ll need a minute anyway and he knows it’s best to be considerate.

He doesn’t know what to say, whether to capture the moment or describe feelings in a redundant gesture because she can already feel them anyway, to thank her or bow at her feet or apologize for regenerating into a man that would dare to seduce her.

“’s all right,” she whispers, cupping his cheek. “Y’don’t have to say anythin’.” She wiggles her hips.

He’s slow at first, because he wants it to last, twine his thoughts with hers slowly enough that she doesn’t miss any of them, the way he normally thinks at a million miles per hour. Wants to meet her lips in a messy kiss with every thrust and be able to brace himself over her with only one hand so the other can touch her wherever she tells him to. But it simply doesn’t work out.

She pines for harder and he begs for faster and barely half a minute passes before his pace is out of control, the balls of his feet scrambling for purchase on the rug to drive into her with everything he has. Both hands grip onto the rug and he can feel the carpet burn forming on her back but it bothers neither of them: she can cling onto his shoulders and dig her nails into his neck and he can watch the way her breasts bounce with the force of his ragged thrusts.

It was always going to be like this, their first time (if they ever had one, he imagined). They’d try to take it slow, of course, being the bit-more-affectionate-than-normal best mates they are. But in the end it’d be hard and fast and desperate on the floor of the library, food and clothes abandoned beside them, months of flirting and celibacy stacked back-to-back, sexual tension without reprieve (seeing as how they live together, for all intents and purposes) finally snapping between them. He hopes they can take their time later. Maybe on his bed.

She finds out he’s wanted her every second he’s been in this body and he finds out Mickey was a terrible shag, slips of their subconscious neither of them can regret, wrapped around each other in the comfort of a shared mental wavelength. Chuckles revert back to grunts and moans, though, when she says she’ll never leave him and he says he’ll never let her, a possessive edge casting a shadow across their link and manifesting in the way his arms close in around her, trapping her beneath him like she’s trying to escape.

She never will, possessive edge or not.

His fear that he’ll lose her is reflected in her eyes, in the way she holds him like he’s going to disappear.

It takes all his strength to hold himself up with one arm and reach down to find her clit, thumb pressing down in sloppy circles until her walls flutter and tighten around him. Rose is more gorgeous than he could have even imagined: her mouth in a perfect ‘o’ and her hair thrown back behind her head, eyes shining with ecstasy before her lids flutter closed over them as she reaches her peak. Her fingertips leave angry red ovals in his shoulders he wishes didn’t fade so quickly.

He swears he can just barely feel what it’s like, to have a Time Lord empty himself inside you, just whispers, echoes on the fringe of his mind. Mostly he’s overwhelmed with his own physiology as the white heat of a long-overdue orgasm bursts inside him, gushing through his pulsing girth before it spreads, shooting through his legs and arms until his thrusts are sloppy jerks and his arms are shaking with the effort not to collapse onto her.

He keeps moving, whispering praise and encouragement in his first language until she’s numb around him and he’s shrinking and flaccid inside her, wringing every morsel of mutual pleasure he can. He lowers himself until they’re chest-to-chest as he slips out of her, dumb to the sweaty, sticky mess they’ve made on one of the best rugs in the TARDIS (he thinks, maybe, at one point, she might have given him a telepathic pat on the back, so somehow she won’t mind).

His lips brush reverent, open-mouthed kisses from her collarbone to her ear while she lies breathless and exhausted beneath him, giving her all the time she needs to recover.

Two fingers tap against his temple and he looks up to find droopy eyelids and flushed cheeks and that caring smile she only reserves for him on her lips. He returns her smile and brushes a stray lock of hair from her face before capturing her smile in a lengthy kiss, all his pretenses stripped away and defensive walls long since torn down.

He’ll reconstruct them later, when they’re in danger or having a row or old fears creep up on him again, that she’ll leave or die or worse, because he’s cold and alien and he doesn’t deserve her.

But she loves him anyway.

It’s the first time he’s admitted the word to himself since before the war, and of course she’s there to absorb it from his consciousness. He doesn’t dare to linger on the four-letter word, to reciprocate so explicitly, but she must be able to feel it coming off him in waves: his hearts screaming through the link that he loves her more than she’ll ever love him. That this was more than just dissipating tension, using her for self-indulgence, something to keep his fat head from getting bored in the middle of the night, or he’d never have allowed it. They might as well be beating it out in Morse code. Perhaps they are.

She’s all he could ask for in the universe, a best friend and heroic companion and guiding light to lost souls like his once was. And somehow, she wants him, too. All of him. He knows how dangerous this will be, leaping to the other side of the line separating friendship and romance, how a physical relationship with a telepath will push her limits on his dark days, how the unique intimacy will crush him to a fine powder when he loses her.

But she holds him in her arms and tells him not to worry and it’s as simple as that: he doesn’t. The burdens of keeping time and living a millennium fade in her embrace and for the night he can pretend he’s normal and they’re normal. That nothing can tear them apart.

They fall asleep on the rug, her cradled in his arms, her cheek pressed against his neck, arms huddled into his chest.

He wakes after a few hours to find the roaring fire reduced to dim embers, so he pulls a blanket over them both before she notices the draft from the hallway.

They don’t discuss it in the morning, as they greet each other with croaky voices or as she ruffles his sleep-mussed hair before throwing off the blanket and separating to dissipate the humid heat of the overnight embrace. Nor as they rub the sleep from their eyes, padding around the room completely starkers to collect their clothes. The troubled part of him, the tatters of his self-esteem and centuries of losing people he cares for, starts to worry she regrets it. Will want them to go back to the way things were: a simple friendship without his emotional intensity weighing on her.

But then, he fishes his specs out of his jacket pocket (not admitting it’s because she thinks they’re charming) but leaves his rumpled shirt on the floor. She goes barefoot and doesn’t bother to wrap a blanket over the summery pajama selection. She makes the tea and complains about how long it takes to boil water on such an ‘advanced’ ship (she’s always feisty in the morning). He fries the eggs and butters their toast and goes off on a list of potential galaxies they could visit (it’s always the first thing he does at breakfast). She smacks his bum with the spatula when he’s not looking and he smiles like an idiot when he realizes how silly and unfounded his fears were.

They kiss before they take a seat, like it’s something they’ve always done, and he knows they can’t go back. And he never wants to.


End file.
